


(The Iron in) Her Heart

by TeaJay (LoreWren)



Category: Maleficent (2014)
Genre: Begging, Dom/sub, F/M, I like you, Movie Spoilers, do it again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 18:52:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1868586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoreWren/pseuds/TeaJay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I like you, begging. Do it again." They have history.</p><p>(Spoilers through the end of the movie as of the first paragraph.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	(The Iron in) Her Heart

**Author's Note:**

> They're about 16, which isn't underage everywhere, but I figured I'd tag for it anyway.

They were happy together, Stefan and Maleficent. When he said he was giving her true love’s kiss, he meant it. And who’s to say he was wrong? People change. True love today is no guarantee of true love tomorrow. And perhaps he did show his true nature when he took her wings, but perhaps it was not always his nature. His desire for something more, some great honor, yes. But not his willingness to destroy in pursuit of it.

Take it as kindness or cruelty or sheer thoughtlessness, but he never did bring himself to kill her.

But this is before any of that. When I can say that Maleficent had her wings still, rather than again. When it had been barely any time at all since he’d given her true love’s kiss (or hadn’t), and had come back to visit her again. She’d been half-expecting him, and so was playing on the edge of their two kingdoms, and he took a moment to watch her dancing by herself before she saw him.

Maleficent saw him and grinned immediately. “Stefan!”

“My Lady of the Moors,” Stefan returned, with a sweeping bow.

Maleficent laughed. “What are you doing?”

He straightened, returning her grin now. “Practicing! I’m going to visit court soon. Wouldn’t do to be completely without manners.”

“Oh.” Maleficent straightened to her full, not-particularly-impressive, height, and gave Stefan an arch look. “But I do hope you’ll not be calling any ladies of the court _your_ lady.”

Stefan blinked. Maleficent had always had the habit of being completely at home wherever he was, and occasionally he forgot how powerful that made her look. She was...enthralling, when she chose to be. (She would choose to be.)

Maleficent arched an eyebrow and Stefan said, “I...no, my lady. Of course not.”

Something wicked glimmered in Maleficent’s eye. “I don’t know that I believe you,” she said, walking up to him so smoothly that for a moment he thought she was gliding. She stifled a giggle at the look on his face, then extended a hand.

Stefan took Maleficent’s hand gently and bowed over it, which made her heart do a little flip. “I beg your pardon, miss, for, ah, whatever I have done to introduce these doubts,” Stefan said, in the manner of one who thought he had these lines down and then suddenly had to perform them, speeding and slowing at odd points.

Maleificent smiled broadly. “I like you, begging. Do it again.”

“You like me groveling, you mean,” he said, kneeling. “Please, mistress, might I clean your shoes?”

Maleficent laughed, and the sound sent a thrill through Stefan. “Perhaps I do. Have you any complaints?”

“I _would_ like to touch you,” he said, looking up through his overgrown bangs at her.

“Then beg for that.”

His cheeks went pink. “I--I. May I kiss you?”

“That”--She brought her hand very close to his face and leaned down to him--“is not begging.”

“Please,” he said, “please?”

“Good boy.” Maleficent set her hand along his jaw and kissed him until he shuddered. “Now, what else shall I do with you?” she murmured, sliding fingers along the the line of his jugular vein.”

Stefan whined. “ _Maleficent_.”

“Yes?”

“I want you, I--would you touch me? Please?”

Maleficent ran the tip of a nail up Stefan’s throat; Stefan leaned his head back. “Touch you where?”

“Maleficent, please, I--I want to be--inside you.”

“Oh, good boy,” she murmured, wings spreading in a gesture Stefan wouldn’t recognize as half-nervous delight. “Clothes off, and on your back.”

Maleficent watched him undress, both of them blushing by the time he was done. Stefan settled onto the soft grass, still welcoming and soft even on the edge of the Moors. Maleficent stepped out of her dress. Stefan propped himself on his forearms to see her, breathless. This wasn’t new for either of them, not exactly, but it wasn’t routine. She had still barely ever seen his pupils wide enough to darken his eyes, to  trembling.

“Beg,” Maleficent said, half to stay in character and half because she wanted to check in on him. Stefan trusted her more than she trusted herself, sometimes.

“Please,” he said instantly, “please, Maleficent, please.”

She sank down onto him and both of them took a breath at the sensation. Maleficent laced her fingers with his, pinning him, and moved in a steady rhythm. Every time she brought her hips down, Stefan breathed, “Please,” as if he couldn’t help himself.

Stefan was beautiful like this, and beautiful when she brought him to the edge and he tried to let her come first, little broken noises coming from his throat until he couldn’t, until she made him. He drew breath to apologize, and she said, “Hush,” pulling herself off him, sliding herself and pulling his hair until his mouth was under her.

*

Later, when Maleficent had no wings, there was a christening, a joyous event throughout the kingdom. And Maleficent came, fairy dust and perfect, careful gestures and etiquette and teeth, cursing the king through his newborn. Because King Stefan had made himself her world, had claimed her in love and then in violence, and she was not thinking of the princess or the queen or their kingdom.

Because Maleficent had iron in her heart now, and she had never learned a way to take it out.

“Maleficent, I’m begging you…”

The words were hardly out of Stefan’s mouth when he realized what he had said, how quickly he’d fallen into the old habit. Maleficent looked at him, and reached through the years, and twisted the iron in her heart--half injury to herself, half to everyone in shooting distance.

“I like you, begging,” she said, still with play in it, but without joy. “Do it again.”

It flickered through Stefan’s eyes, whatever they had had. Possibly love, and certainly want. If he had felt nothing, he would not have hesitated. But he still wanted her, and if he had ever loved her, part of him still did. King Stefan knelt. “Please.”

And he was remembering their time together when they were young, and so was she, and all of it hurt and none of it mattered. Stefan had drugged her and pressed iron to her body, and he’d put something so terrible she could only call it iron in her heart. He was not allowed to beg forgiveness for that. Not now, and not ever. Not again.

“Very well.” She wanted to do something as unforgivable as he had done to her, and have as little remorse. Prove that she could, that he had no power over her, but that she yet had power over him.

Maleficent took his child, by and for his new love, his new life, everything Stefan had earned through her pain and twisted until it would hurt him as much as she hurt.

But Maleficent could not be remorseless. Aurora was made such that she would be loved by all who met her, all who knew her, and Maleficent could not look at such a person and send her to be locked up, send her alone to her fate. Maleficent was hurt and powerful, powerful even in her hurt, _especially_ in her hurt.

But her will was not iron.


End file.
